Rena Margules Talks About Her Top 3 Spots for Hiking in the Northeast

Rena Margules loves hiking and often spends her weekends exploring different hiking spots with her friends. “It’s a great sport that will really get you in shape,” she says. In this article, Rena Margules shares with us some of her best hiking spots and some of the amenities that make them her favorites. “I love the mountains,” Rena Margules begins, “and I live in the Northeast U.S., so most of the places on my list are going to be near me.” When asked to start with her all-time favorite, she hesitates. “It’s not that I’m not sure,” she replies. “It’s just that there are so many options. It all depends on what you’re looking for.”If you’ve never been hiking before, Rena Margules suggests starting out with something relatively flat, like a park trail. Mountain trails are beautiful, she says, but it would be tough to start out with something like that unless you are very fit. Rena Margules says she recalls her early days of hiking when she would push herself and do an all-day mountain hike. “There were some days when it took all I had just to get to the top,” she says. “I didn’t know if I was going to be able to come back down!”“My choice for a first-time hiker would be some of the state parks,” she says. She explains these trails are usually relatively flat and easy and says that because they’ve been hiked on thousands of times before, the trails are going to be well-marked. “You won’t get lost on one of those,” she adds. Another one of the easier trails she recommends is the Ocean Trail in Acadia National Park located along the coastal waters of Maine. Rena Margules says the trails here are more like walking paths, and some run alongside the ocean, so the views are simply amazing. “If you start at Sand Beach,” she adds, you’ll eventually get to a place the locals call Thunder Hole.” Here, you can watch waves crash onto rocks and it sounds just like thunder, she adds. Another place she enjoys is New Jersey’s Bearfort Ridge Trail located on Bearfort Mountain, Rena Margules says. There is some rock climbing involved, but it’s not too strenuous, and the views are so worth it, she adds. “If you can get there on a clear day, you can even see the Manhattan skyline.” There’s also a lake there they call Surprise Lake if you want a place to rest or have a picnic, she adds. Because of the magnificent views, this one is probably the most picturesque of them all, Rena Margulessays. The Devil’s Path is probably the one that’s the most challenging, Rena Margules says. It’s about 25 miles long, deep in the Catskill Mountains of New York, and features five of the 35 Catskill High Peaks. “Most of the hike is strenuous,” she says, adding that most of the hikes are straight up or straight down.” “With this one,” she adds, “you’ll definitely get a good workout, so you’ll definitely want to be in shape before you go.”